Jan. 18, 2008
NUSports.com Video
Full news conference
Northwestern Football
Coach Pat Fitzgerald:
Opening statement...
"It's an exciting day for Northwestern football. Today's the opportunity to welcome two new members of our football staff to our football family. I had a chance to visit with our team this morning and visit with our defense and some with our offense, and now at least put a face with the name and start an opportunity to get a relationship going with the players. I'd like to thank the coaching staff, players, President Bienen, our departed Athletic Director Mark Murphy and our interim Athletic Director Bob Gundlach for all the support and help as I worked through the process to add new leadership to the coaching staff. It was a process that was excellently run and I think we've had the opportunity to add two tremendous coaches, but more importantly, two tremendous people into our football family. We'll get things started as quickly as we can. There's a lot going on when you change homes and change addresses, but we're excited to have Mick and Mike on our coaching staff."
Coach Mike Hankwitz:
Opening Statement...
"I'm excited to be here. When Pat first approached me and we started talking, I was so impressed with what he stands for and how he tries to do things and the direction that this program is going. It was a chance for me to stay in the Big Ten. My family is very excited about living in the Chicago area. I thought it was a great fit. I like the family approach that Pat takes, I like the way they do things here. I knew some of the coaches from the past and I felt like it could be a great opportunity for me to continue. I still have a great passion for coaching, I want to be in a situation to have fun and do things the right way and that's what we're going to do here. I have not had a chance to look at a lot of video -- I just got here today and my first order of business will be to watch last year and get a feel for the players and what we could do differently, what they like to do here. They were close last year, being 6-6 and having three other games when they were leading in the fourth quarter. Pat described some of the personnel to me and I'm excited about what we have coming back. I'm looking forward to getting started this week to watch what we did last season and to meet all the players, getting to know them a little and get a feeling for their strengths and weaknesses. I don't think we'll make total changes structurally. There are a lot of similarities to what I've done in the past. I want to see what they've done, how the players fit into it and we'll decide as a defensive staff what we want to keep and do differently."
Coach Mick McCall:
Opening statement...
"I'm also very excited about being at Northwestern. In the short time Pat and I had to talk, I was excited about going into the meeting and ready to throw on a Northwestern football helmet and play right after that. He's very enthusiastic, passionate about Northwestern football because he's lived it. You couldn't ask for a better person to work with or play for than Pat Fitzgerald. That starts it off. I've been at a lot of different levels of football, coaching high schools, Division II places, some other Division I schools -- a lot of different places, a lot of different stops. Through those times I've had an opportunity to coach guys that coached here or know Pat and everyone says the same thing - Northwestern is a special place. My wife and I are very excited to be here. I've had a chance to talk to some of the players and get a feel for them. We were real close in a lot of situations, a lot of places and we're just excited to get it going. Offensively, we're going to be a spread team -- that's who we are. There might be some changes here and there, but we are who we are. From the beginning when Coach Fitzgerald and I talked, that's how we're going to approach this. Like Coach Hankwitz, I'm going to get together with the entire staff and we may move some things around, see how it fits in the spring and go from there."
Coach Fitzgerald:
On his approach with the hiring process...
"I wanted to make sure it was the right fit and as we work through getting to know coaches externally. I also wanted to take a look at the great coaches we had internally. I had an opportunity to visit with about 10 to 15 coaches on both sides of the ball, both externally and internally and as things moved along, the support of the university allowed me to move along and get to know quite a few coaches. I also had the opportunity to sit down with both Mick and Mike at the AFCA Convention in Anaheim and look the coaches eye-to-eye and set a plan of action for the future. I'm very excited about it."
On the added titles for some of his offense staff...
"I think we have just defined their roles more than anything. Mick is our offensive coordinator. He's going to call our plays and I think his leadership style will lead our offense and we'll work together to make our offense the best spread attack that there is in the country. I've just more or less defined roles for coaches I feel strongly about professionally that have done a great job here and given them the opportunity to blossom and also accentuate the roles they already have here and maybe more define what they've done for us in the past."
On finding a defensive line coach...
"I'm going to try and find the right fit for our coaching staff. With that position being open, we'll all sit down together and talk about what the best course of action is to fill that remaining role on our staff."
Coach Hankwitz:
On how the spread offense has made it tougher on defensive coaches...
"Things go in cycles in college football. I've been in it long enough to remember when the wishbone came in and that was unique and people had to defend that. First it was the Houston veer, then it was the wishbone and then the one-back passing attack. Now the spread is kind of a combination of the option and one-back passing attack. I think what it does is spread the defense out and when you get a team that can run an end through it, they try and get you in a bind where if you commit yourself to the pass, they're going to run the spread. Anytime you've got an athletic quarterback, it forces you to defend the quarterback as a runner. You're not just defending the running back and fitting gaps that way, it's creating an extra gap that the defense has to account for. If you're committing to that, they can throw the bubble screen and the passing game and the three-step game and different things, so it's a challenge. Obviously we're going to rely on our offensive coaches to help us see what they don't like to see and that's the beauty of it. I'm going to be working first hand with an offensive spread team that can say `well we don't like to see this, we don't like to see that.' That'll help us tremendously, too. My last couple of years at Colorado in the Big 12, we were starting to face a lot of that with Texas and Vince Young, A&M with Reggie McNeal and Missouri had Brad Smith, Iowa State had a guy ...so we started defending it there. When I got into the Big Ten and we're starting to see it come back through, every year you get a little better at it and every year you figure out ways that you like better, so it's going to be at our advantage to have the knowledge that our offensive staff has here."
Coach Fitzgerald:
Is NU still planning a move to the 3-4...
"We're going to evolve defensively based on where our talent is and where our personnel fits best to what front, what configuration is best suited for us to be successful. Is that the 3-4 this year? Time will tell. Is it 4-3 this year? Time will tell. We'll sit down and analyze everything. We've had a component of both. We'd like to be multiple and dictate to offense what we want based on our personnel. At the same time, be simple for our young men to learn and play fast. So is that 4-3, 3-4? I think it really comes down to what fits our guys best and have the flexibility to be able to get in and out of both three down linemen and four down linemen.
Coach Hankwitz:
Your thoughts on the 4-3 and 3-4 defenses...
"I've coached both -- a three-man front team, a true 3-4 and I've been in a 4-3 that implemented 3-4 type things. I want to get a feel for our personnel. We want to be multiple enough that we're giving offenses problems, but we want to be able to execute, too. It can be a great scheme and a great plan, but if we don't execute it, it isn't worth anything then. In the past I've been aggressive and a big zone blitz guy, mixed in man. I'd like to be a zone blitz guy so we're not predictable, now the extent to which we do each of those is going to depend a lot on our personnel--we're not trying to fit the old round peg into the square hole. What our players do best, we're going to do and be as multiple as we can. We have corners that can play a lot of man and I like to play man, but I don't have a good enough feel for that right now. Pat's given me a good idea of what our personnel is, but at the same token, I do want to watch them, talk to our players and coaches before we decide. We're going to evolve this thing through spring ball into the fall. I don't want to go too fast, we don't need to put everything in this spring. We'll have an idea of what we want to do. The key is we want everyone to know what we're doing and be able to execute it and add it as we go along. We're not going to put everything in this spring in the first 15 practices. We have time in the fall to add things that we think will fit what we want to do."
Coach McCall:
On what attracted you to Chicago and NU football...
"I think that the biggest thing is the academic and athletic component that goes hand-in-hand a lot more than some other places. I've only been here two days, but I know that from different people I've talked to who've worked here or know Northwestern. It's a different kid that you get to work with. I think that makes it a special place. Chicago's a very intriguing town as well. It's a huge, big city, but it's still the Midwest. There are those Midwest values that are still available and it's a unique part of a big city that you don't get in other cities.
Coach Hankwitz:
On what attracted you to Chicago and NU football...
"I've talked to some coaches that have been here in the past and they said what you'll love is the balance between academics and athletics. It's a unique situation and you'll grow to love it. Obviously Chicago has so much to offer culturally and with sports and entertainment-wise. I'm from Michigan originally and a Midwestern person. My wife talked to some people and found out everything that there is to do in Chicago and I'm excited about it. Everyone I've ever talked to that's lived here has nothing but good things to say. The living and the lifestyle appealed to my wife and she's pretty important in this whole process."
Coach Fitzgerald:
Considering your age and background, was it important to find coordinators with a lot of experience...
"I was looking for the right fit. It didn't matter if it was 38 years of coaching experience or 13 years or 10. I was just looking for the right fit for what our program needs at this time and I'm extremely excited about what these two men bring to our football program. They both have a wealth of experience, a wealth of talent in being able to coach and teach young men. Their value structure is identical to mine, so I was pretty enamored with both of them. I walked out of the meetings and interviews and said `those guys fit what I'm trying to do with our value structure and from a leadership style for our players and our program and the type of guys we're trying to attract to our program.' I'm excited to have them come here and I cannot wait to get started."
On the coordinators ties to Gary Barnett...
"You have your mentors that you rely upon and obviously Coach Barnett is one of mine and someone that I trust. When I need some information or when I need an ear to listen and an opinion, Coach Barnett is always there for me and I'm always appreciative of that. I called in everyone I know in the coaching profession and it is somehow intermingled through a lot of different lines and boundaries and obviously coach knows them quite well, but I've used quite a bit of networking to get to this point."
Coach McCall...
Differences between the spread offenses at Northwestern and Bowling Green...
"There are not a lot of differences. The biggest thing that we're going to do and what I've done any other place, whether it's spread or not, you've got to find out who our players are and get them in position with formations and the positions you want them to get the football. We're going to approach it in that regard. There are some things you may see different that you saw a year ago, but we're going to spread the field just like Mike talked about and be able to throw it and run it equally as well. If the defense is defending one part or the other, we're going to go the other way. It's not that hard. It's a lot simpler than it seems, but that's what the spread does -- it makes them defend the whole field vertically and horizontally."
Have you watched much of NU's offense and its players...
"I've watched a little bit just for a day or two. Obviously, you've got a lot of skill guys coming back. You've got a fifth-year quarterback coming back and that's important to have that experience there. There are a lot of things in place for us to be successful and we're going to try and get all the pieces in the puzzle to make it work and we'll have a good time in the spring. I guarantee you that. That'll be fun."
Thoughts on the color purple...
"My old high school was purple and white. We weren't the Wildcats, but it was purple and white. I actually went back and coached there my first year as a head coach for three years, so I've got a little purple in the closet some place. I'll find it."
Coach Hankwitz:
Thoughts on the color purple...
"I like it. I don't like the color red (laughter), so now I can trade it in."